FORMER Le Cirque 2000 executive chef Sottha Khunn is coming back to New York. Sources say he has signed a lease to open a place uptown.
Khunn left the famed eatery in early 2001, reportedly for a brief sabbatical before taking over Sirio Maccioni’s Le Cirque in Mexico City’s Camino Real hotel, but the two never hooked up again.
With financing in hand, the Vietnamese native has added to the buzz among four-star chefs – including Gray Kunz, Jean-Georges Vongerichten and Alain Ducasse – who are also planning to open new places next year.
Khunn could not be reached, but Maccioni wishes his former chef “the best of luck.”
* Japan’s culinary counterpart to Gotham restaurateur Steve Hanson is opening his first U.S. restaurant in Manhattan.
Koji Imai, whose Food Scope Inc. empire operates nearly 30 high-end restaurants in the land of the Rising Sun, will debut Megu, a 15,000-square-foot, 320-seat Japanese eatery at 62 Thomas St., in March.
Imai is taking over the space from Obeca Li, which closed earlier this year.
The exotic, multilevel interior will include a dining room with a black granite reflective pool, a lounge, a tea house-inspired VIP room, a chef’s suite and a sushi bar.
Avoiding the open, executive chef-type of kitchen, Megu will have five master chefs in compartmentalized stations, each overseeing sushi, tempura, the grill, soba and specialty dishes operations.
* Bored with the Big Mac? How about a McBurrito?
New Yorkers will soon be able to order all kinds of quick-serve Mexican specialties when fast-food conglomerate McDonald’s opens several branches of its Mexican-influenced Chipotle chain next year.
The 220-unit Denver-based division – which features south-of-the-border basics like burritos, tacos and fajitas – already has stores in Atlanta and Washington, D.C.
* Another diner in New York? Not quite. industry (food) executive chef/owner Alex Freij will open Diner at 102 Eighth Ave. (at 15th Street) next spring. The chef promises the 60-seat boite will have diner prices, but not diner quality – or lack thereof.